Beast And Location

Buy our crap! I'm happy to announce that our T-shirt supplier SplitReason is having a 20% off sale today on all Destructoid merch. including our new Kamikaze shirt (pictured) and the RetroforceGO! shirt (now available i...

I am still torn on this one. While my love for generic action games is well known (I don't care for faux-innovation, just give me a sword and some monsters), there's something about the brawler style action game I truly miss,...

All went a bit quiet on the Golden Axe front, but we now have a selection of new screens from its current-gen revitalization, Golden Axe: Beast Rider. The concept is simple -- take the monster spurring fun of the classic Gold...

As with most delays, it makes us sad that we don't get to play the game sooner, but it's almost always worth the wait to play a more polished and complete version of the title in question. With The Witcher, however, that isn'...

While Chester sits in his hot tub of money and Wii points, he's left the task of this week's Virtual Console updates to me. And what a week it is to be covering this set of releases. Nintendo's been really excited about what'...

It's very easy to get excited playing the Wii. With everything going on, you sometimes feel like you're in the action -- I know I feel that way when I'm playing Red Steel. Well, sometimes people can get hurt from this. Let's...

As far as I'm concerned, it's hard to go wrong with a Golden Axe remake. Just give me a dwarf and a shedload of skeletons to fight and I'm happy. Of course, this is the games industry, and nobody ever does the right thing whe...

Nov 19 //
Aaron LindeOur Great and Glorious MissionWe at Destructoid are like you -- we play games by the boatload. We live, breathe, eat, sleep, and write our experiences, and though the focus of the site proper is spread across the great expanse of topics related in one way or another to gaming, when you get right down to it, we're in it for the playing. Accordingly, we take our Destructoid reviews very seriously, and strive to be your number one destination for raw, brutally honest opinions on the games that we feature every week. We love games, and we want them to be as great as we're led to expect -- more than that, we want them to be better. So we believe that no matter how much we love a developer, a publisher, or a concept, the finished product must be held responsible for its failings and praised for its successes. Our commitment to honesty is fierce, fierce like bear, a bear which mangles any fanboyish tendencies that might spring up in the process of reviewing a product. It's our hope that by adding our voice to the already crowded arena of game reviews, we might affect some change in the way that games are played, reviewed, and made. Most of all, we want to give you the best, most honest and informed opinions on the games we play as possible.The Team, the Games, and How We ReviewOur core staff is Rev. Anthony, Nick Chester, Brad Rice, Leigh Alexander, headed up by me, your snuggly and lovable reviews editor. While reviews are open to the entirety of Destructoid staff, you'll likely see the bulk of them handled by the aforementioned crew, who've made regular reviews part of their personal responsibilities as Destructoid staffers. Regular review staff were selected for their diverse taste in games, varying points of view and keen eyes for technical and creative excellence in games. They all look damn good in lingerie. Games reviewed on Destructoid are selected on a per-case basis. In addition to marquee releases, we often review games that fly under the radar or might go otherwise ignored by many gamers, and we try to distribute our attention evenly among both camps of games. Sometimes we get copies sent to us, sometimes we pay for them ourselves, but regardless of the source our dedication to brutal honesty remains our primary goal in our reviews. If a publisher sends us a game that makes our heads explode into joy-joy rainbows, we'll tell you. If a publisher sends us an overhyped pile of crap, we'll tell you. The only thing that bugs us more than wasted money is wasted time, and we're not interested in letting our readers waste either when selecting games to play.When reviewing a game, we judge a title against similar games already released, genre peers, and the title's success in accomplishing what it sets out to do in respect to overall fun -- in other words, our reviews aren't meant to be directly compared to one another. If one author reviews Big Nick Chester's Gun-Totin' Bitchslap Adventure and gives it a 7, and a day later another reviews Brad Rice's Block-Droppin' Hootenanny and scores it an 8, this doesn't mean that Destructoid is unilaterally firm in the belief that block-droppin' is always, always better than bitch-slappin'. What it does mean is that Block-Droppin' Hootenanny reached a higher level of block-droppin' achievement than Gun-Totin' Bitchslap Adventure had in its own respective genre. When in doubt, read the text. I'm going to repeat that: please read the text. If our scores confuse or frighten you, try to figure out why we gave it such a score before you look up our addresses and firebomb our homes. That being said, let's move on to the 400-pound gorilla--Our Review MetricsIf you haven't noticed by now, Destructoid takes issue with the handling of game reviews, or specifically the scores that accompany them. By and large game reviews are handled like academic grades, which has led to an overwhelming glut of games falling in the 7-9 range, with reviews declaring a game virtually unplayable often receiving scores of 5 to 6. When our reviews content was overhauled in May of 2007, those of us committed to bringing more reviews to Destructoid's front page agreed to try to break our habits and adopt full use of the 1-10 scale, as initially described by our own Reverend Anthony in one of his features. Here's a rundown of our scores and what they mean:1 – Unbearable. Practically unplayable. An exercise in absolute madness.2 – Awful. Maybe the idea was kind of clever, or you may have fun accidentally, but everything else is horrendous.3 – Bad. Some aspects are terrible, others are either so-so or kind of fun.4 – Poor. An admirable effort with a sliver of promise, but essentially mediocre.5 – Average. Half of the time the game is fun, half of the time it isn't, for whatever reason. This game is absolutely average in every single way -- neither exceptional nor face-melting awful.6 – Decent. Slightly above average, maybe a little niche. But you wouldn't recommend it to everybody.7 – Good. Replayable, fun, but nothing innovative or amazing. The game potentially has large flaws that, while they don't make the game bad, prevent it from being as good as it could be.8 – Great. Very fun -- its essential gameplay aspects are cool and interesting, but may not be implemented in the best way.9 – Fantastic. Negligible flaws. Otherwise very, very good; a fine example of excellence in the genre.10 – Incredible. As close to perfection as we've yet seen in in the genre or gaming on the whole. A polished, unparalleled experience.Going by this standard, bear in mind while reading Destructoid reviews that a sub-7 score doesn't mean terrible. It can mean a lot of things, and is usually the product of a variety of failings on the part of a given title. But unlike many publications, a 6.5 or 5.5 never means unplayable, it doesn't mean awful -- it means flawed. But many of the games to which such scores are assigned are fine experiences for a particular group of gamers, be they fans of the genre or the series or simply someone looking for an experience that only the game in question can offer. Once again, when in doubt, read the text.Moreover, the reviews editor does not police scores given to games by the reviewers. If a writer believes a game deserves a 7.0 and the spirit of the text reflects the score, it remains in the hands of the reviewer to determine an appropriate point value. As such, reviews published on Destructoid are the opinions of the individual author or authors and not the staff as a whole. As stated earlier, the review crew is made up of a diverse cast with varying opinions on which games are fun and which are not -- find a writer you agree with and look for his or her opinion. If you've read this far, we congratulate you. Keep an eye on this post; we'll be linking to it in every Destructoid review, and making amendments as this great trainwreck lumbers ever onward into infinity. Thanks for reading our reviews, and if you have any input on the state of things, don't hesitate to let us know.

There's been a general consensus among Destructoid staff and readership alike that clarification of our reviews process and metrics has been sorely needed for some time, and it's something that I've been wanting to do for awh...

Mass Effect has been passed by the British Board of Film Classification and given a 12-rating. Among the usual talk of mild violence and light cursing, one interesting entry in the board's classification details is that of a ...

Thanks to links from Gay Gamer and SilentHill5.net, I was able to track down the scrumptiousness that is new details on the latest installment in the epic survival horror series. According to the full article in this month's ...

Dick McVengeance has been clamoring for a fleshed-out trailer for the upcoming, PS3-exclusive Folklore, and I hope that his hunger has been satiated. In the above trailer, we get a look at Ellen and Keats, the game's protagon...

In the days before videogame journalism owned my soul, I could often be found in used bookstores perusing shelf after shelf of aging tomes, looking for that lit nerd's holy grail so often hidden there. Although the harsh real...

Podtoid returns for a special appearance fresh from Santa Monica with tales of E3, starstruck encounters with colleagues and industry professionals, and unwanted sexual advances. For this E3 wrap-up edition of Podtoid we'...

My Fourth of July was spent taking it easy (this is a chic phrase for slacking). I've been on a horror kick lately, and I haven't seen a Nightmare on Elm Street film for at least 5 years, so I borrowed a few from a fr...

Digital World Tokyo brings word about some updated PSP software called Everybody's Map 2. The software works with a GPS dongle that's available for somewhere around 5,000 yen ($41 USD), and costs 50,040 yen on to...

A mighty Norse warrior, a fierce Greek fighter, a powerful Egyptian sorcerer and a skilled Aztec shaman --what do they all have in common, exactly? Well, besides being a wicked crew of asskickers, they are the four playable r...

Nyko, the been there done that before company, has proudly released the PlayStation 3's version of the ever so popular Intercooler. While recently garnering a decent review over at IGN, it's just a bit concerning that...

Since today's gamers can't handle cute without a fair dose of abject horror and violence in their games ("Yes! Blood! I am manly and awash in gore!" is a mantra I've uttered once or twice during rounds o...

After a long hiatus, the Podtoid is back.The original Podtoid was shot down over Germany two months ago, and while the Germans deny involvement (and that the War has been over for sixty years), our investigation into his whe...

Ladies and gentlemen, you are staring directly into the rabbit's hole, only this particular hole is filled with people dressed as rabbits dressed as Cloud and Sephiroth (and they are quite possibly having sex with one ano...

It's hard to believe that these NBA Live 2008 images are actual production screenshots. Unlike the somewhat creepy humans in Virtua Tennis 3, the texture and modelling work in next-gen EA sports games continue to push th...

Colony Studios announced their opening today, boasting one of the most well rounded teams in recent memory. Their staff has worked on every major MMO title from Everquest to World of Warcraft (not to mention everything in be...

Apr 28 //
Aaron LindeThe Red Star (PS2)Developed by: Acclaim (sans their hallmark suckery, mind)Released: April 24, 2007Bargain Binned on Arrival: Only $19.99 new, but you might have trouble finding it. Read on to find out why.The story behind Red Star, as I understand it, goes something like this: Acclaim developed a game based on the graphic novel of the same title by Archangel Studios, completing what was essentially a finished product in 2004. Around that time, Acclaim had finally gone belly-up and bankrupt, and Red Star went off the radar. XS Games bought the rights to publish the title and, with some help from Union Entertainment, made some minor tweaks and improvements and set The Red Star in line for release in late 2006. Ask anybody who was looking forward to this game and they'll tell you terrible tales of watching the release date push back again, and again, and again. For all the trouble of rescuing The Red Star from limbo, XS Games couldn't seem to hammer down a firm date. Then, to the surprise of just about everybody, the game suddenly -- and perhaps magically -- shipped to stores on April 24th, earlier this week.Some caveats, though. Since the PS2 has come to be regarded as more or less inert by retailers in the face of next-gen, there has been little to no push by the major brick-and-mortar shops to get this game sold. I've heard that many GameStops around the country received few, if any, copies of this game, provided they weren't pre-ordered in full ahead of time. Ask for Red Star by name and employees will stare at you blankly. This is a low-profile release with what looks to be extremely limited shipping numbers; your best bet to find a copy is either the we'll-sell-anything department stores and online merchants. Keep at it. It's worth seeking out.The Red Star can be best described as an old-school mixtape of gameplay; there's some Final Fight, some Smash TV, some Ikaruga, and plenty of style to boot. Where many games have sought the kind of smooth blend of a variety of genres into one complete game, few have done it so well as The Red Star. At first glance, the game seems a relatively familiar beat-'em-up sort of game, with some pretty hip combination attacks, juggles, and air combos to shake things up. Building upon this foundation, The Red Star complicates the genre by infusing the ass-kickin' with a healthy dose of shmup, equipping your character with three different long-range weapons. If you're wondering how that works, I'll tell you: surprisingly well.Each of The Red Star's three characters -- Kyozo, Makita, and Maya -- all control very differently, have various strengths and weaknesses, and offer three unique ways to play the game. Regardless of which character you choose, The Red Star's combat flow remains largely the same. Combat is composed of two primary focuses: melee and long-range, adapted from beat-'em-ups and shmups, respectively. For the most part, you'll be using melee to handle the ground troops that come after you, reserving your firearms for crowd control and weakening enemies from a distance. There's also those great and terrible shmup-style bosses, but we'll get to those in a minute. The controls are simple enough: square is your basic attack which is linkable into combos, the cross button activates your shield, and circle fires whatever gun you currently have selected. Holding R1 while attacking activates special attacks unique to each of the game's characters, and linking these special attacks with basic strikes is the key to pulling off some really brutal combos. The huge variety of baddos in Red Star come in all shapes and sizes, some of whom are weak to melee attacks over shooting and vice versa, keep things from getting stale as you work your way through the game. One of the biggest draws of Red Star, however, are the bosses.Imagine a boss from Ikaruga, one of them huge mechanical beasties that sling a hojillion bullets at you from every angle. Similar tyrants bookend the levels in Red Star, and they're an absolute riot. As you near the target, the camera swoops up to assume a more comprehensive perspective, granting the player a more traditional top-down view on the boss battle. While you're gunning down weak points, you're also made to dodge complex and swift bullet patterns and, in the later levels, negotiate some melee targets while you're at it. It gets a bit messy, but it's a whole lot of fun, and it's the infusion of shmup elements into The Red Star that really makes it feel like a complete experience. Some of the later bosses are simply unforgettable.And like any worthy shmup or brawler, The Red Star offers co-operative play throughout the game, and working your way through with a buddy makes for a hell of a good time. One frustrating element to the combat in Red Star is wrapping up a combo just as a cadre of thugs have lined up to hand you your ass, which they do, just as soon as that attack animation wraps up. If you've got someone watching your back, it makes for a slightly more forgiving experience throughout the game. The help is definitely handy, especially in the later levels when the difficulty ramps up and The Red Star's biggest flaw rears its ugly head: no mid-stage checkpoints, and a level-by-level save system. While the game might feel a bit easy at first, you'll definitely feel the absence later on. Length is another issue. The Red Star can be knocked out in a matter of hours -- which is what you might expect from a game from either of the genres that influence it -- and when you finally lay the final boss to sticky pulp, you're left wanting a little more. Fortunately, having three completely different characters with which to tackle the campaign adds a great deal of replay value. Co-op goes a long way in extending the life of The Red Star, too. For a gamer like me, Red Star has just about everything I need. Solid gameplay, great co-op, and it doesn't look half bad, either (it even has progressive scan). It's not quite a shooter, not quite a beat-'em-up -- The Red Star has many faces, and you'll see 'em all in every level throughout the game. Can't beat that for twenty bucks.

Good evening and happy Friday, friends, and welcome to a special edition of Bargain Bin Laden. As those of you familiar with how we work it up here in Bargainville (located in northern Dealvania) are already aware, covering n...

By way of Famitsu comes a slew of new screens of Beautiful Katamari, due out sometime this year (God, please, let it be sometime this year) on the Xbox360 and PS3. Bandai-Namco keeps upping the ante on them Katamari, don'...

I can't read Engadget Japan, and I don't care. This page could say this mod was made from my mother's intestines and I'd likely still be over here making my stupid American noises of glee and bouncing about. B...

Destructoid operates within an industry that prescribes scores, usually a one-through-ten kind of affair, to the games we play. But as folks who live and breathe the stuff, it's safe to say that our response to games goes...

Get your petitions ready, kids. We've recieved word today that adorable puppies will no longer be exclusive to any one major console; news that is sure to hit many a loyal fanboy like a 12-ton wrecking ball to the face. ...

Mother nature is a tough one to trump, after all. If you could bare to stomach more painful fanboy videos after ChadWarden's epic PSTriple fanboy performance, these two new videos should put a gyroscopic rumble-free fork ...

This unsettling photoshop contest gallery is a result of what happed when we tasked hardcore gamers to turn gaming industry executives and franchise characters into hardcore rappers. The result? Donkey Pimp.Ken Kutarabling. H...

Kotaku somehow beat me to this gallery, for which I would declare jihad on them if I was of the proper ethno-religious background. Luckily for them, the worst my people can do is under-salt their marinara.Earth Eternal, an up...